Jacob Rynne Theatre 2000 4 March 2018 BFE Critique
This paper will focus on discussing the play called BFE. The play is casted, coordinated, and Directed by UGA personnel and played at the Seney-Stovall Chapel in Athens, Georgia. The play itself is about a girl named Panny, her story on how she was kidnapped and attacked by a strange man who assaulted her and the events that led up to her assault and abduction. In it I will discuss the Plot, text, costumes, lighting, Sound, acting, and directing of the play. I will have an emphasis in the actors Evvie and Lefty, where I will break down their characters and how they helped further the plot between each-other, but also move me. For starters, I will discuss the Text, which will consist of the plot, major characters, and musical elements. The plot itself begins with Panny looking back and discussing the events that led up to her abduction. Throughout the play she is seen both acting in the present, but also looking back and discussing how events played out. The biggest portion of the plot I found most entertaining was revolved around how Lefty interacts with Evvie and vice versa. Their blossoming love and affection for each-other is executed with precise comedy and dramatic suspense that leaves the viewer on the edge of their seat, routing for them to get together. The main idea with these characters is that each of them is lonely and relatively shy when it comes to interacting with each-other, yet have an attraction towards one another and want to be more than friends. While they hang out with each-other you notice there isn’t an exact musical element that’s always present. Instead, in moments of huge tension, the audience is left without a musical element to help build up the suspense between the characters. That strategy got me on edge and caused me to jump in my seat when Lefty and Eviee decided to actually date! Now onto the settings of the play. Settings blankets over a few concepts: physical appearance, materials, style, and relationship to the theaters architecture. The set of the play is done in the fashion I would prefer to use myself, which is the use of only one set and interchangeable props. The simplicity of this style of set allows for smaller sets to be built on it, allowing each scene to be played without having to move any of the other sets besides a few minimal props. The style itself shows all indoors sets for the scenes of the play, bringing the more important sets (such as the bedroom and living room scenes) upfront and the lesser ones (the scene of driving for example) towards the back. This way allows the director to freeze certain actors in place while allowing others to come onstage and act uninterrupted by the previous scene. Once that scene is done, the actors can simply walk off the set and allow the other scene to resume as if nothing happened. I prefer to utilize this element on personal projects because you can maximize the scene flow while not sacrificing time between set changes. The sets created work well with the theater’s architecture due to how it incorporates it into the play. A lot of plays make different backdrops and scenes that contrast with the ampetheater, but this play adopted the red surrounding it and used the color to emphasize the emotional surges throughout the play. In scenes where the emotions of characters are out in the open and vulnerability is present you see the lighting increase to show the vibrant red backdrop. Actors also used the unique architecture to create interesting moments of dialogue, such as how Panny’s pen pal used the balcony and center house to present her character as someone who’s in a faraway place and not really present. The costume design of the play is a different story. The Costume design in this section will discuss the materials used, style, and relationship to the characters. The materials and style used in the play tend to be simple one’s that showcase the life of the family Panny lives in. This family is relatively middle or lower class with a very simple home full of mediocre furnishings at best. The living room we see only has a basic table, and the T.V. is propped up on boxes with the chairs being the same thing. The biggest decoration is the simple chairs and mall old and out of date T.V... Now each costume tends to represent the character and what they do. Panny’s mother wears simple garments and Homestyle clothing. Lefty wears a security outfit most of the time. Evvie wears incredibly vibrant clothing that shows her personality and aura like presence. Jack the pizza Delivery guy and The General both wear striking outfits that easily show the audience just what it is that they are supposed to be. Hugo dresses like a nerdy kind of peculiar looking character that does his own thing, which becomes apparent in the play as he reveals his unique outlook on life and situations. Lighting during the play was difficult to pull off due to the Churches limited choices, but the director still understood how to implement the limited amount of light he had to deliver effective messages of dramatic tension. For many scenes lighting was kept at a basic normal hue, but there were times where the light was darkened or focused in on one point in order to effectively show the tension of a situation. Take for example the scene between Panny and the mystery man. At first the lighting is normal as they interact with each-other, but then the light tends to become more pronounced and dims out around them as the tension (sexually on the man’s side and fearfully on Panny’s) rises. The light focuses and gets brighter as the danger around Panny develops, then dims out again as she tells the audience what really happened to her that night. The detracting atmosphere created in that scene is one of dark horror, and since I’ve been in a similar situation, it really hit home for me. Between the characters of Lefty and Evvie, the lighting is more shy and romantic, dimming when feelings are revealed and then exploding when those feelings are confirmed between the two characters and the plot develops. My favorite part is how the two decide they cannot go on together, the lighting decreases and then winks out as their relationship comes to a close, but I still wonder if they’ll try to make it work. I hope they do. I actually enjoyed the use of sound effects more than the score itself. I understand the score can convey feelings and emotions about scenes that silence cannot, but there are scenes where one can actually feel more tension when there is no sound. When Panny is confronted by the evil man there is a scene where the music stops. The dialogue that she and her pen pal give echoes in the science and really hammers home how alone Panny really is in her moment of danger. For me that was easily the most profound moment of the musical score of that play. The sounds used during the play bring the family interactions to life, presenting the audience with lifelike interactions that make you forget that you’re watching actors and not an actual family. The dramatic tension of a phone ringing, the sound of a car driving away with Panny inside it, and the sounds of the T.V. as the play fades to black are a few examples of sounds supporting their scenes. In this paragraph I’m going to talk about my two favorite characters Lefty and Evvie, which (in my opinion) had the most notable moments in the performance. Lefty is a nervous security guard who’s very shy and wishes to connect with others outside his family. He’s a very caring individual, perhaps the most caring person to walk on stage during the whole performance. It is shown early on that he is a brave, but also shy character who wishes to connect with others. This draws him to continue to approach Evvie throughout the play. Evie is a very outspoken and confident woman who doesn’t mind giving her piece of honest mind to Lefty. She becomes attracted to Lefty after he gives her a figurine he’s hand painted for her to hang onto. He tells her the character is a healer, and I think he meant that as a compliment about how Evvie is being so helpful and kind to him. As the play progresses the couple begin to see one another with a healthy frequency. Both characters hold a strong appearance to each other and find a mutual companionship that could be something more. When they begin to date, it’s actually Lefty that helps Evvie by reassuring her that he is happy to be dating her. In turn at his household we see Lefty become more confident in how he handles himself when talking to others, such as his annoying sister. Lefty is a strong character that holds onto his family no matter what, and ultimately sacrifices his relationship with Evvie in order to take care of them. Evvie is a vocally strong woman who tries to not be weak around anyone but Lefty, who she’s grown fond of. Whenever there’s strain between them, you can see the ghost of her troubled past resurface. Lefty (up until the end of the play) supports Evvie during these moments, being a form of anchor for her to hold onto. These two characters are by far my favorite, and I wish they had more screen time. This paragraph will cover what I thought about the directing aspect of the play, what I did and didn’t like, and what could be done differently. The cast was spot on. Seeing the differences in how different races and cultures interact with not another (especially considering how the dialogue made some awkward social situations) was interesting. I did however have reservations with Panny. I understand her character description is spot on, but the execution of her acting fell a little flat, in my opinion. Being in the circumstances she was, I felt that there should most certainly be more energy in her character, but perhaps that’s just my personal experience. The casting of the mystery man was perfect. His character had me on edge the second he walked onto the stage. For me the story actually wasn’t incredibly clear at first. I understand that Panny tells you what happens at the beginning of the play, but once the play begins to show the events that led up to this event I became lost. For the first 20-30 minutes of the play, I didn’t fully understand what the play was about. I assumed it was about a girl and her family problems, what with her mother calling her ugly and being such a Pushover. I thought Panny would be accused of stealing the item the man did, not that he was the man we’d come to hate by the end of the performance. The transitions between that scene and the next left me wondering if that man was of any real importance, as there wasn’t any elements to show us he was really significant besides his wardrobe surrounding him. Maybe if the lighting was more focused on him or if the reaction from Panny was more genuine I would have been drawn to wonder about him. The use of background audio cues and musical scores was well done, and helped with the transitions and flow of the scenes. I especially enjoyed the telephone and T.V. sound effects. Take the scene between Hugo and Panny while they’re on their first phone call. The small amount of tension can be felt as Hugo tries to call her back again. Then there’s a scene at the end where everything fades to black and the T.V. is all that’s playing. I was thrilled with that ending because to me it signified the amount variables that could come should the play have kept going with each channel switch. As far as the composition of the play, I believe our director did really well. The set was created to fit the Proscenium stage it was played on, showing one main set that changed with props to allow smooth transitions. This never left the audience waiting for long and kept my attention focused on what was to come. Overall, I’m actually really pleased to see that this play flowed as well as I had hoped it would. Even though the play was confusing at first, it really brought out its full potential once it passed the first few scenes. For me, this was a play that I found to be enjoyable despite the reservations I had beforehand. Being someone who was in a similar situation to that of the main character, this hit close to home and made this paper a little difficult to write. That being said, I’m immensely glad that I went to see it, as it has helped me see that the worst is indeed over.
Theatre 2000
4 March 2018
BFE Critique
This paper will focus on discussing the play called BFE. The play is casted, coordinated, and Directed by UGA personnel and played at the Seney-Stovall Chapel in Athens, Georgia. The play itself is about a girl named Panny, her story on how she was kidnapped and attacked by a strange man who assaulted her and the events that led up to her assault and abduction. In it I will discuss the Plot, text, costumes, lighting, Sound, acting, and directing of the play. I will have an emphasis in the actors Evvie and Lefty, where I will break down their characters and how they helped further the plot between each-other, but also move me.
For starters, I will discuss the Text, which will consist of the plot, major characters, and musical elements. The plot itself begins with Panny looking back and discussing the events that led up to her abduction. Throughout the play she is seen both acting in the present, but also looking back and discussing how events played out. The biggest portion of the plot I found most entertaining was revolved around how Lefty interacts with Evvie and vice versa. Their blossoming love and affection for each-other is executed with precise comedy and dramatic suspense that leaves the viewer on the edge of their seat, routing for them to get together.
The main idea with these characters is that each of them is lonely and relatively shy when it comes to interacting with each-other, yet have an attraction towards one another and want to be more than friends. While they hang out with each-other you notice there isn’t an exact musical element that’s always present. Instead, in moments of huge tension, the audience is left without a musical element to help build up the suspense between the characters. That strategy got me on edge and caused me to jump in my seat when Lefty and Eviee decided to actually date! Now onto the settings of the play.
Settings blankets over a few concepts: physical appearance, materials, style, and relationship to the theaters architecture. The set of the play is done in the fashion I would prefer to use myself, which is the use of only one set and interchangeable props. The simplicity of this style of set allows for smaller sets to be built on it, allowing each scene to be played without having to move any of the other sets besides a few minimal props. The style itself shows all indoors sets for the scenes of the play, bringing the more important sets (such as the bedroom and living room scenes) upfront and the lesser ones (the scene of driving for example) towards the back. This way allows the director to freeze certain actors in place while allowing others to come onstage and act uninterrupted by the previous scene. Once that scene is done, the actors can simply walk off the set and allow the other scene to resume as if nothing happened. I prefer to utilize this element on personal projects because you can maximize the scene flow while not sacrificing time between set changes. The sets created work well with the theater’s architecture due to how it incorporates it into the play. A lot of plays make different backdrops and scenes that contrast with the ampetheater, but this play adopted the red surrounding it and used the color to emphasize the emotional surges throughout the play. In scenes where the emotions of characters are out in the open and vulnerability is present you see the lighting increase to show the vibrant red backdrop. Actors also used the unique architecture to create interesting moments of dialogue, such as how Panny’s pen pal used the balcony and center house to present her character as someone who’s in a faraway place and not really present. The costume design of the play is a different story.
The Costume design in this section will discuss the materials used, style, and relationship to the characters. The materials and style used in the play tend to be simple one’s that showcase the life of the family Panny lives in. This family is relatively middle or lower class with a very simple home full of mediocre furnishings at best. The living room we see only has a basic table, and the T.V. is propped up on boxes with the chairs being the same thing. The biggest decoration is the simple chairs and mall old and out of date T.V... Now each costume tends to represent the character and what they do. Panny’s mother wears simple garments and Homestyle clothing. Lefty wears a security outfit most of the time. Evvie wears incredibly vibrant clothing that shows her personality and aura like presence. Jack the pizza Delivery guy and The General both wear striking outfits that easily show the audience just what it is that they are supposed to be. Hugo dresses like a nerdy kind of peculiar looking character that does his own thing, which becomes apparent in the play as he reveals his unique outlook on life and situations.
Lighting during the play was difficult to pull off due to the Churches limited choices, but the director still understood how to implement the limited amount of light he had to deliver effective messages of dramatic tension. For many scenes lighting was kept at a basic normal hue, but there were times where the light was darkened or focused in on one point in order to effectively show the tension of a situation. Take for example the scene between Panny and the mystery man. At first the lighting is normal as they interact with each-other, but then the light tends to become more pronounced and dims out around them as the tension (sexually on the man’s side and fearfully on Panny’s) rises. The light focuses and gets brighter as the danger around Panny develops, then dims out again as she tells the audience what really happened to her that night. The detracting atmosphere created in that scene is one of dark horror, and since I’ve been in a similar situation, it really hit home for me. Between the characters of Lefty and Evvie, the lighting is more shy and romantic, dimming when feelings are revealed and then exploding when those feelings are confirmed between the two characters and the plot develops. My favorite part is how the two decide they cannot go on together, the lighting decreases and then winks out as their relationship comes to a close, but I still wonder if they’ll try to make it work. I hope they do.
I actually enjoyed the use of sound effects more than the score itself. I understand the score can convey feelings and emotions about scenes that silence cannot, but there are scenes where one can actually feel more tension when there is no sound. When Panny is confronted by the evil man there is a scene where the music stops. The dialogue that she and her pen pal give echoes in the science and really hammers home how alone Panny really is in her moment of danger. For me that was easily the most profound moment of the musical score of that play. The sounds used during the play bring the family interactions to life, presenting the audience with lifelike interactions that make you forget that you’re watching actors and not an actual family. The dramatic tension of a phone ringing, the sound of a car driving away with Panny inside it, and the sounds of the T.V. as the play fades to black are a few examples of sounds supporting their scenes.
In this paragraph I’m going to talk about my two favorite characters Lefty and Evvie, which (in my opinion) had the most notable moments in the performance. Lefty is a nervous security guard who’s very shy and wishes to connect with others outside his family. He’s a very caring individual, perhaps the most caring person to walk on stage during the whole performance. It is shown early on that he is a brave, but also shy character who wishes to connect with others. This draws him to continue to approach Evvie throughout the play. Evie is a very outspoken and confident woman who doesn’t mind giving her piece of honest mind to Lefty. She becomes attracted to Lefty after he gives her a figurine he’s hand painted for her to hang onto. He tells her the character is a healer, and I think he meant that as a compliment about how Evvie is being so helpful and kind to him. As the play progresses the couple begin to see one another with a healthy frequency. Both characters hold a strong appearance to each other and find a mutual companionship that could be something more. When they begin to date, it’s actually Lefty that helps Evvie by reassuring her that he is happy to be dating her. In turn at his household we see Lefty become more confident in how he handles himself when talking to others, such as his annoying sister. Lefty is a strong character that holds onto his family no matter what, and ultimately sacrifices his relationship with Evvie in order to take care of them. Evvie is a vocally strong woman who tries to not be weak around anyone but Lefty, who she’s grown fond of. Whenever there’s strain between them, you can see the ghost of her troubled past resurface. Lefty (up until the end of the play) supports Evvie during these moments, being a form of anchor for her to hold onto. These two characters are by far my favorite, and I wish they had more screen time.
This paragraph will cover what I thought about the directing aspect of the play, what I did and didn’t like, and what could be done differently. The cast was spot on. Seeing the differences in how different races and cultures interact with not another (especially considering how the dialogue made some awkward social situations) was interesting. I did however have reservations with Panny. I understand her character description is spot on, but the execution of her acting fell a little flat, in my opinion. Being in the circumstances she was, I felt that there should most certainly be more energy in her character, but perhaps that’s just my personal experience. The casting of the mystery man was perfect. His character had me on edge the second he walked onto the stage. For me the story actually wasn’t incredibly clear at first. I understand that Panny tells you what happens at the beginning of the play, but once the play begins to show the events that led up to this event I became lost. For the first 20-30 minutes of the play, I didn’t fully understand what the play was about. I assumed it was about a girl and her family problems, what with her mother calling her ugly and being such a Pushover. I thought Panny would be accused of stealing the item the man did, not that he was the man we’d come to hate by the end of the performance. The transitions between that scene and the next left me wondering if that man was of any real importance, as there wasn’t any elements to show us he was really significant besides his wardrobe surrounding him. Maybe if the lighting was more focused on him or if the reaction from Panny was more genuine I would have been drawn to wonder about him. The use of background audio cues and musical scores was well done, and helped with the transitions and flow of the scenes. I especially enjoyed the telephone and T.V. sound effects. Take the scene between Hugo and Panny while they’re on their first phone call. The small amount of tension can be felt as Hugo tries to call her back again. Then there’s a scene at the end where everything fades to black and the T.V. is all that’s playing. I was thrilled with that ending because to me it signified the amount variables that could come should the play have kept going with each channel switch. As far as the composition of the play, I believe our director did really well. The set was created to fit the Proscenium stage it was played on, showing one main set that changed with props to allow smooth transitions. This never left the audience waiting for long and kept my attention focused on what was to come. Overall, I’m actually really pleased to see that this play flowed as well as I had hoped it would. Even though the play was confusing at first, it really brought out its full potential once it passed the first few scenes.
For me, this was a play that I found to be enjoyable despite the reservations I had beforehand. Being someone who was in a similar situation to that of the main character, this hit close to home and made this paper a little difficult to write. That being said, I’m immensely glad that I went to see it, as it has helped me see that the worst is indeed over.